The Art Of The Close
 

 
Do you know what can significantly throw a speaker off at the end of their presentation?  An otherwise effective speaker can be knocked off their fee if they “close” badly.

Closing doesn’t just mean getting people to buy.  Closing involves your delivery, tone, and words.

An example of a bad close is when an inferior speaker teaches, teaches, teaches during the speech and then makes an abrupt switch to selling when they close.  They close in such an obvious way that people know they are being “closed”. 

How do you avoid falling into the trap of a bad close? 
 

• Never say things like “If I could show you a way to do x, y, and z would you buy my product?”  This will automatically give a “yes” response, but it is only focused on you selling things to clients.  This destroys rapport with your clients because you are not providing any stand alone benefit to them.  You are only selling to them.

• Instead, you need to incorporate “yes” questions within valuable content that you provide.  You will sell people on the concept which is much more effective then barraging them with the direct sale.

• You should sell throughout your seminar, but not in an obvious way.

•   Your energy should be even higher during your close then during your speech.

• You must have a transition into your close.  You can’t just teach and go directly to the close.  Instead, teach and then have a transitional story that leads into your close.  Go from general to specific.

• Anytime you close you will have to deal with hesitation.  People will naturally be reluctant to spend money on your products.  People are ingrained to be wary of spending money.  This causes tension. 

To combat this tension, you should strategically place humor throughout your close.

• Give a brief description of your product.  For example, provide the key points of what they will learn.  When it comes time to close people should already trust you and like you so tell them just enough so they want to buy. 

• Avoid over selling.

• Tell your first joke right after you describe your product.  This deflates the tension because you both know that the next step involves spending money. 

• After the joke, when people are laughing, go into the pricing about your product.

• Two common objections are time and money.  Have solutions to these objections ready in advance.  One option about the objections is to agree with them up front and then provide the solution.  You want to avoid going head to head with the objections.  This will seem argumentative.

• People will end up agreeing with you if you agree with them first.

Marketing Tips Provided to You by:
Matt Bacak, The Powerful Promoter
Author of Powerful Promoting Tips